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I talk about this all the time, thought I would go into a little more detail for those of you that take time out of their day to pop by. And by the way: Thank you! It is my honor to see the number of "Views" going up each day.

Intention. When a person Intends to do something, they form a thought, decide that this particular thought is good for them and then act on it. Now, whether or not the action takes place is irrelevent. Once the decision has been made that it WILL HAPPEN: then you have Intention.

This is a point that is very specific to aikido training. "Ki extension" is a form of intention. O'Sensei once put emphasis on Kiai: the shouting before an attack. That isn't what I'm talking about here.

I was commenting on another person's journal what "No mind" meant. My answer was complete and total stillness, calm, peace and quiet. If you have to think to yourself,"Hey! I'm at peace and thinking of nothing!" ...well, then you just started thinking of something, didn't you?

Intention comes from that stillness. Intention comes from No-mind. When you are calm, cool and collected. You are thinking of absolutly nothing and the thought of "I am going to do X." has come and passed just that quickly... that is the birth of an Intention. It is a very powerful feeling, especially when all your heart and soul is backing it up.

Once upon a time, a couple friends of mine were squaring off and getting ready to fight. The names were being slung and trash was being talked... you know, a typical Friday night. Anyhow, the thought of friend J being an ex-navy seal had totally slipped my mind. And then it was there. I stopped and looked over at friends B & A and thought to myself,"Do they know what they are doing?" And the answer was a resounding: No.

"Friend J, we uh.... you and I, we know where you are coming from, right?" He smiled at me and nodded. "Yup."

Oh hell.... and an Intention was born. My intention.

"A... B...? You two have to go. I'm sorry, but this is not going to happen. Not here, not now. I'm sorry, but you two are leaving now. Good night."

As they were walking out the door, I could feel the anger going right out with them and peace forming up behind me. I locked the door and turned around to J and said, " There was about to be two dead bodies at the bottom of the stairs, right?" J smiled again and said, "Yup."

You see, J was calm, cool and collected. He had the willilngness and abililty, and opportunity was knocking at his door. But he was waiting for it to kick itself in. He was resolved enough to not open THAT door... but to close it when he was through.

And I had an intention: to save two lives by any means nessecary. In this case, it meant they had to leave despite my asking being an insult. These two guys were standing up for their pride and honor. They were right to do so as J had said something offensive. However, I couldn't ask J to leave because they wouldn't have let him. A & B wanted a "piece" of J... and that wasn't a possibility. Nope, not in my house and not on my watch. If I had to walk the TWO of them to their cars, i could have done it. Hell, I'd have picked them up and walked them down the stairs if I had to. Thankfully that wasn't the case.

SO... to sum up: Intention is the decision of something, anything, with zero chance that it will NOT happen. No doubt. No complications. No mind. It just IS. Intention can be for good or for bad... but that choice has to be made first and then you have to live with that. Personally, I can live with saving two lives by pissing them off and telling them to leave. They had a right to be angry... but better that than dead.

Intention is powerful extension... with little to nothing that can stop it other than an even greater Intention to counter it.